To Live Left Behind
by FrickFrackDotNerd
Summary: In the 6 months since Avatar Korra's death, Asami has had to live with the guilt and the loneliness, and it's tearing her apart. Can she ever go back to the woman she was? Implied Korrasami, past Masami (Rated M for language and some violence)
1. Broken and Breaking Again

**A/N: The song "Sleeping Sickness" by City and Color was in my mind when I was writing this chapter**

* * *

The light was flickering a little overhead. Asami shot a scowl up towards it. It should _not_ be doing that, especially not when she was trying to read her book. She'd designed this whole building, and Asami Sato did _not_ make mistakes. She'd gone over the electrical plans for the hospital herself and everything was state-of-the-art, running on hydroelectric power so there is no real reason that the bulb above her should be winking on and off in the incredibly irritatingly inconsistent pattern that it was.

Closing her book with a sigh, she filed a mental note to have a conversation with the building manager later.

Asami leaned her head back against her chair and closed her eyes. Shutting off her brain for a minute, she simply sat and listened to the sounds of the room. Tonraq's rhythmic breathing resounded against the bare drywall. She'd finally been able to convince him to take a nap in the small cot taking up more than half of the tiny suite.

The only other noise was the slow but steady dripping of the morphine bag hanging above Korra's bed. Since her fight with Zaheer, the constant influx of pain medication had been the only thing able to keep the once-powerful avatar comfortable. Any attempt by the doctors to reduce her supply in the past two weeks had left Korra mewling in pain at best, and outright screaming in agony at worst.

Turning to look at the girl, Asami had to repress a sigh. Korra just looked so pitiful laying there. She was covered in perfectly made sheets, Senna checked nearly every half an hour to make sure that her daughter was tucked-in tight. Hands that had once ripped down mountains, parted the seas and even brought the wind to heel now rested limply on itchy blankets, covered with small cuts and abrasions. Every part of her was scarred from her fight with Zaheer.

Still, it was almost possible for Asami to believe that Korra was simply sleeping. _Almost._ It was the look on Korra's face that gave it away. Her eyes weren't resting peacefully, but darted back and forth in panicked motions behind closed lids, and her mouth was pursed in a tight line. Korra was fighting for her life and even in her drugged coma, that expression gave it away.

The doctors hadn't been particularly helpful. The metal poison the Red Lotus had used on her was rare, and they were unfamiliar with the effects it could have on the human body. When you threw in the unusual nature of The Avatar's spiritual energy, even the advanced healers Asami had paid to come from the Northern Water Tribe were at a loss as for what to do for the girl.

She'd hardly left Korra's side since she'd been hospitalized. Along with Senna and Tonraq, she kept a watchful eye on The Avatar around the clock. She had gently cleaned korra's sweaty brow in the night, stood by anxiously chewing her lip as doctor after doctor came by for their meaningless checkups. Through tears of anguish and frustration, she'd even helped Senna peel the bloody clothes off the Water Tribe girl when she was first admitted. Seeing Korra's body bruised, broken and so utterly lifeless like that was not something she wanted to remember, but her brain would never let her forget.

The two had grown close over the past year in the Earth Kingdom, and Asami was not about to abandon her friend now.

 _Friend? Come on Sato let's be honest here._

Asami cleared the thought with a swift shake of her head. Yes they were friends, but she'd come to feel something more for the girl. What had started with butterflies in her stomach after Korra had complimented her sand glider in the desert, grew to a small (and embarrassing) heat in her cheeks whenever they sat a little too close together or their hands touched, and developed into a light airy feeling in her chest at the mere sound of The Avatar's voice.

Eventually, she had resigned herself to the fact that she'd fallen in love with the brash Water Tribe girl. Unless she was completely misreading the signs, Korra felt something for her too. Not that she had a great track record with these things. And it was for that exact reason that Asami had never told Korra how she felt. _Stupid, stupid stupid!_

Well, she was just going to have to wait now. She certainly couldn't blurt out her love for Korra when she was in a state like this. Once she was healthy again, back to the Korra that _she_ knew maybe they could talk. They could go to the beach, she always liked the beach, and they could get dinner and maybe see a mover…

A slight twitch on the bed jolted her out of her fantasies. Asami had been like a taut string for days, waiting for just the slightest sign that Korra would wake up, and now she had it. The fingers on her left hand had begun to move, just a little on the bed sheets making a quiet scratching noise that would be impossible to hear unless you had been listening as closely as the heiress had.

Heart in her throat, she stumbled the two steps to the bedside and crouched down. "Korra?" she whispered as quietly as she could muster.

What was at first just a fluttering of fingers had moved up her arm and turned into a light shaking. Peering over The Avatar's prone form quickly confirmed that the mysterious shaking was not isolated to one side, but both arms were now quaking fitfully. Her face did not change but maintained a pained expression as she began to violently buck off the bed.

"Korra!" Asami screamed as an icy panic shot up her spine. Hearing her shout, Tonraq jumped from his cot and was at Korra's other side in an instant.

"What happened?" He growled without looking up at Asami.

"I-I don't know she was just lying there and I was reading then I walked over. I saw her fingers move and I thought maybe that-"

"Get a nurse. Now." The chief commanded in a tone that did not offer any argument, eyes never leaving his daughter's agonized face.

In a flash Asami was gone, out the thin door and sprinting down the linoleum hallway. She slipped once before leaning against the wall for support and pushed forwards. "Help! Please help!" she yelled as loud as she could, praying to any spirit that would listen that someone heard her.

It was several agonizing seconds before a young man dressed in green scrubs popped his head around a wall with a confused and vaguely irritated expression which drained away instantly when he saw what Asami assumed was the terrified one she was wearing. "What's wrong?"

"It's my friend. She just started shaking and she won't stop, Her whole body is-"He cut her off by turning away from her and shouting something about a crash cart before sprinting back the way Asami came.

Following on unsteady feet, she had to all but dive out of the way as two more healers in similarly colored scrubs wheeling what she assumed to be the aforementioned crash cart came barreling down the hallway and into Korra'r room.

Tentatively Asami followed and immediately wished she hadn't. The first healer held a still-shaking Korra on her side and a ghost-white Tonraq hovered behind him. Spotting the two he stated "She's seizing. It looks like there was still some poison in her system and it's just made its way to her heart which is causing it to beat arhythmical and cutting off blood to the brain. We have to stop the seizure." Almost as an afterthought he added "And get that girl out of here!"

One of the healers nodded and began unhooking wires from the cart and sticking them to Korra's skin with gel adhesives while the other calmly approached Asami and softly pushed her backwards by the shoulders. "I'm sorry miss but we need space to work. You're going to have to wait outside." Feeling like her head was full of cotton Asami slowly nodded and backed her way out of the door and into the hallway until she hit the opposite wall. Not knowing what else she could do, she slowly slid until she was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest.

As the door to the tiny room gently shut in front of her there was nothing she could do now except for wait and count her heartbeats. Realizing Korra's heart was betraying her just a few yards away. Asami felt disgusted with the easy regularity of her own pulse, and consciously stopped listening to the familiar thrum within her chest.

The minutes ticked by and the noise behind the door grew more and more frantic, and she could make less and less sense of what they were saying. Now however, it seemed as though there was nothing but chaos, panicked noises and quick footsteps flitted behind the thin door.

Then there was silence. Asami could even hear the quiet electric hum of the light above her, and she didn't even dare to breathe.

Finally after what seemed like a lifetime, a quiet voice floated to her from underneath the slim crack in the door. "Alright, It's over. Let's call it. Time of death…"

Asami buried her head in her hands and felt a sharp snapping in her chest that she hadn't in years. Not since a little girl wearing a red bow hid underneath a bed from screams and smoke.

* * *

Asami shot upright in her chair and stared wildly around the room. After a panic-ridden moment she realized where she was. Her office, she was safe and sound in her office, not in the hospital. _That's six months in the past Sato_ she told herself _it's over and done, she's gone and there isn't a thing in this world you can do to bring her back. Get used to it._

She was trying. She really was trying to get used to it. And as she ground the heel of her hands into her eyes she remembered why she was currently sitting in her pitch black office, napping on top of an unfinished sketch of a new Sato-mobile engine.

She'd started cracking again that afternoon. She'd worked so hard to put herself together again and one throwaway comment from a board member, a Mr. Gi-Lan about reallocating some of the land in Avatar Korra Park for new office space had sent her into a frenzy.

At first, she'd seen red and threatened to fire him on the spot. Then she'd come to her senses and, through gritted teeth, apologized and told him she'd been a bit tired and not thinking clearly. Neither of which had been true, but that weasel was important Future Industries, the man was a wizard with finances and was quite possibly the only one in The United Republic that could actually make all of her building plans feasible. She simply could not afford to be outside his good-graces.

He accepted her apology graciously of course. Gi-Lan was too smart to stay on _her_ bad side either.

Asami had still been fuming however. Avatar Korra Park was the one thing, the _one_ thing she'd been proud of in the long months since she'd returned from the Earth Kingdom. It had been meticulously designed in such a way that humans could comfortably enjoy its natural beauty without disrupting the spirits who now called it home. She'd jumped through hoops to get it approved by the zoning commission, even promising Raiko that she'd pay for it out of her own pocket and that _snake_ had wanted to tear up a part of it so that a few more office drones would have a place to sit and stare mindlessly at their cubicles for the rest of their lives.

After her incredibly insincere apology she had locked herself in her office, instructing her (very distraught) secretary that she wouldn't be taking any calls the rest of the day, and sulked. As it always did, her anger slowly burned away, leaving nothing but the suffocating sadness and guilt that seemed to follow her everywhere these days.

It had been on a day just like this, shortly after the funeral that Asami discovered her favorite part of moving into her father's old office. The man had been a great lover of Fire Nation whiskey, and kept a fully stocked mini-bar next to his own desk. Though she'd never been anything more than a social drinker, that day Asami had taken to it with gusto, and drained more than half the bottle. She'd felt better. Not forever, she knew it couldn't last, but for a few hours at least the heady liquor had left her with nothing. No thoughts, no feelings, no guilt, and no empty aching in her chest that made it so hard to breathe.

Since that day she'd taken up her old man's mantle and made sure that the mini bar was always freshly stocked with the best booze money could buy.

Today, she'd been knocking back a fifth of some sort of gin made in Omashu, when the idea for how she could add an extra cylinder to the Sato-mobile engine without compromising fuel consumption had hit her. Her mood improved dramatically, not only was she no longer thinking about Gi-Lan, but she had a good glow on and was getting some real work done to boot. That is of course until she fell asleep, and had _that_ dream.

She dreamed of that day in the hospital almost once a week since it had happened, and every time it felt just as real. The worry, the panic and the inevitable sense of crushing loss left her exhausted and hollow.

Tonight, it also left her feeling thirsty, very thirsty.

Without moving her head she let her hand crawl across the dark desk until her fingers bumped into smooth glass. Picking it up and shaking it lightly, she grimaced at how little seemed to be left. _Wasn't this a new bottle?_ Ignoring the need for a glass, she tipped the neck up to her lips and drained it in one long swallow. It made her nose scrunch up and her eyes water, but she could feel it doing its job as the burning trickle made its way down her throat.

She slammed the bottle down on the table a little more forcefully than she meant to, cause a sharp snap and large shards to splinter off the bottle. Blinking down at the pieces of glass reflecting the moonlight in crazy shapes, she sighed before leaning down to pick them up.

With fingers fumbling as much from the darkness in the room as from the alcohol tearing its way through her system, she managed to pick up almost all the pieces. One of the last shards cut deeply into her thumb and she breathed out a "Fuck!" while sucking the blood out of the very painful gash.

In the back of her mind she heard her father's voice telling her it was neither polite nor ladylike to swear. Her mental voice responded to his by telling him it also wasn't very polite to sell weapons to a terrorist organization so he should mind his own god damn business, which caused her to chuckle darkly to herself.

Placing the majority of the pieces of broken bottle on the desk, she sat with the largest one in her left hand, and simply stared at the cut on her thumb which was dripping a thick crimson trail down her palm before staining her very expensive shirt cuff. For half a minute she glared at it and in a detached sort of way debated widening the cut with the impromptu blade still clutched lightly in the opposite hand. It would be so easy to just rip it open. It would be painful, yes but Asami had been hurt worse before.

After the initial sting she would just fade away wouldn't she? That's how the stories always described it, just blissfully fading away into nothing. She could do it, right now. The office was deserted at this time of night and no one would be able to stop her. It would be so easy to just let it all go. No board meetings, no Gi-Lan, no deadlines, no waking up to cold sheets and the quiet thrum of an empty apartment…

But Asami but the piece of glass back down and quickly wiped off the blood as best she could on her pants, most likely staining those too. She knew her head wasn't right, but she wasn't quite _that_ bad yet.

In all honesty, she should probably be getting home. She knew from painful experience that a night spent sleeping in her office chair would leave her with a crick in her neck, and in an even fouler mood than she was usually in these days. So, rising with only a slight wobble, she grabbed her jacket off the rack next to her desk and made her way to the exit.

As the elevator doors dinged open at the basement garage, she stuck her hand in her jacket pocket to find her Sato-mobile keys only to hiss in pain as the cold metal came into contact with the open wound on her thumb. She'd forgotten about that already. She would have to see a healer about it first-thing tomorrow, or else her employees would begin asking questions as to why their CEO had a large gash on her hand, and those were questions she'd really rather not answer.

Climbing into the driver seat she let out a contented sigh, there was really nowhere in the world that Asami felt more at ease then behind the wheel. When she was driving everything was so simple, all she had to do was focus on the road and let everything else take a back seat. Tonight she had to focus a little more than usual pulling out of the narrow employee entrance to the garage, but that was fine. This was hardly the first time she'd driven home after having a couple of drinks.

Once she was safely out and on to the main roads she could relax. It must be later than she thought because the roads were all but deserted. That was just the way she liked them, and she was able to open up the engine a little more than may have been technically "legal" but she was unquestionably the best driver in Republic City, and had built most of these roads to boot. In her head she had the right to drive them any way she wanted.

Once she got to a comfortable cruising speed, she allowed her mind to wander just the tiniest bit. As it often did, without meaning to her mind floated back to memories of Korra. She found herself thinking about the one and only driving lesson she'd ever given The Avatar. She'd honestly thought at the time she might have had to replace the clutch on her favorite Sato-mobile after Korra had started and stopped so many times so quickly. It had been such a nice afternoon, the two of them just enjoying the unseasonably warm fall day driving through the city with the top down. Asami just had to turn to her left and drink the long toned brown arms of the powerful Avatar, just had to call her name and have her shining cerulean eyes drawn towards her face as if she was the only person in the world. It had been so easy for Asami to make her laugh in those days, even now if she just closed her eyes she could still hear it quietly twinkling in the back of her head. If she just closed her eyes for a second, she could call it back.

The loud squawk of a horn brought her sharply out of her memories, and even in her gin-soaked state, her trained reflexes didn't let her down as she snapped the wheel to the right to avoid the oncoming taxi. They weren't fast enough to avoid the radio-pole on the side of the road however.

* * *

 **A/N: This is my first story so any notes, critiques, edits, feelings, hatred, rage, you can give me would be greatly appreciated! More should come soon, and thanks for reading!**


	2. Meeting In A Police Station

**A/N: "Dead Oaks" by Now, Now sets a pretty good tone for this chapter if you're looking for a song**

As the Sato-mobile smashed into the pole accompanied by the crunch of twisting metal and breaking glass, Asami's head slammed against the steering wheel. Agonizingly she lifted her head, noticing that she left a sticky wet spot on the wheel as she did. She must have cut her head. Lights danced in front of her eyes and her head swam, not in the pleasantly warm way it had been moments before, but in a twisting unfocused way and for a stomach-churning second or two Asami thought she might be sick.

The sensation passed and she was eventually able to find the door handle and haul herself out of the wreck. The first thing she noticed was that the car was totaled. It was halfway twisted around the telephone-pole and nearly all of the windows were smashed in, littering the pavement at her feet with glittering glass.

The second thing she noticed was the police sirens growing steadily louder. She winced at the noise, and realized someone must have called the police already. Weren't these people in bed, and couldn't they mind their own business for once? Still, she rationalized as she rested her back against the remains of her vehicle; they would probably give her a ride home.

The police car pulled up and as the officer stepped out, he visibly paused for a second upon seeing who was leaning against the wreck with blood streaming down her face. Asami struggled to repress a smirk. Everyone in the city knew who she was and this particular patrolman was going to have one hell of a story to tell when he got back to the station tonight.

"Ma'am are you alright?" He asked, wiping the star-struck look on his face and returning to his previous professional demeanor "Were you in an accident?"

This time she actually let the corners of her mouth twitch up a bit "No officer, I just decided that I would try my hand at modern art" she drawled gesturing with one hand at the mangled Sato-mobile behind her. The officer cocked his head slightly to the side with a frown. _Clearly not one of Lin's best and brightest_ she thought ruefully. "Yes, I was in an accident, and I would be very appreciative if you could give me a ride home. And if you could please call a tow-truck to handle this mess."

Finally understanding the situation, the patrolman moved to help assist her "Okay ma'am, if you would just step over here, I have to check and see if you have a concus-" a few inches away from her he stopped dead in his tracks, hands paused inches above her shoulder and looked at her with a penetrating glint in his eye. After lowering his hands to his sides, in a low and serious voice he asked "Ms. Sato, have you had anything to drink tonight?"

Asami frowned. What business of it was his if she was drinking? She was a legal adult. Then she made the connection. She'd been in a car accident, in the middle of the night. And after finishing what she now reasonably assumed to be an entire bottle of gin, she probably smelled like a distillery. She was going to have to be smart. "Listen officer…"

"Mei" the patrolman responded with a nod, but without stepping away from her.

She put on her silkiest voice, the one she used when flirting with old rich men at galas. "Officer Mei. Since you clearly know who I am, you know that I am a _very_ rich woman. What you might not know is that I'm also a very charitable woman and I would be more than happy to double the winter bonus of a Good Samaritan who drove me home without asking too many questions." Deep inside her, a voice that had almost been killed off by alcohol and neglect screamed at her for throwing around her money and power like this, like her father would. But as she'd grown so accustomed to doing, she thoroughly squashed the niggling voice of her conscience.

Officer Mei was unmoved however. "Ms. Sato, I'm just going to ask you to stand on one foot for a few seconds, can you do that for me?"

"I don't think that's necessary" Asami started, taking a sharp step backwards. This was _not_ going her way.

He took another step towards her, palms out in a placating gesture "Ms. Sato, if you refuse to take the field sobriety test then I'm going to have to administer a breathalyzer test." Asami took another step backwards, red-rimmed eyes darting around, this was not going her way at all. "Ms. Sato if you could just remain calm for a moment." Mei said as he grabbed her upper arm.

"Don't touch me." Asami spat, trying to shake free which only caused him to increase his grip. Whirring around with her free hand, Asami threw a left hook aimed directly for Officer Mei's face. Her knuckles connected with a satisfyingly wet crunch and she saw blood gush out of his nose in the split second before his head spun around.

Trying to shake the vibration the impact had caused out of her arm, Asami made to run but Mei wasn't going to be so easily shrugged off, and he quickly grabbed both her shoulders. She may have been the more experienced fighter, but Mei had the weight advantage, and her inebriation didn't help her cause either as she was quickly pinned to the ground with her arms behind her back.

With her face planted into cold and wet concrete, Asami felt her shoulders being violently wrenched back and a moment later cold metal clamped around her wrists. She let out a huff of air as Mei began to quickly recite her rights. She was sore, cold, drunk and exhausted, and now she knew that the night was far from over.

She felt like crying, but closed her eyes instead, inhaling the scent of pavement, sweat, blood, and the motor still trickling out of her destroyed vehicle.

About an hour later The proud CEO of the most powerful and influential company in the world sat on a cold metal chair covered in dried blood, handcuffed to a table in one of the RCPD's interrogation rooms.

She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing here. She'd given her statement, been checked over by a doctor, and after a bit of debate, decided to admit that she'd been drunk. She could have denied it but they'd have just run a few tests and figured out that she was lying, and she didn't want to stay here all night. At best they should have had an officer drive her home, court order in hand. At worst they should have thrown her in the drunk tank to sleep it off.

Except now it seemed like they'd been content with leaving her to freeze to death in this clammy room. Two officers had locked her in here fifteen minutes ago, placed a hot cup of tea in a Styrofoam cup in front of her and told her to behave. Despite all her loud demands to be told what was going on, both had kept their poker face and left without saying a word.

Now, Asami had nothing to do but slowly count the cinderblocks on the wall. She'd gotten all the way up to forty-seven when the door slowly creaked open and in walked a very tired and grim looking Mako carrying a thin folder.

She had to laugh, of course it had been Mako. What other RCPD officer would have been insane enough to keep Asami Sato locked up in an interrogation room in the middle of the night when with a well-placed word she could have any one of them fired the next day?

He sat down, dropping the folder unceremoniously on the table as she reigned in her giggles. "If I'd known this is what you were into, you could have told me about it when we were together and things might've been a bit more interesting." She said with a curved eyebrow, lightly shaking the cuffs. Predictably, he didn't rise to the bait.

"You look like shit." He said, looking her dead in the eyes with what Asami could only assume was his "scary cop glare."

"Sorry, your henchmen didn't exactly give me a chance to put my face on. If I had known I'd be seeing you tonight I would have worn that red lipstick you liked so much." Once again, there was no response to her barb. That was a little disappointing. She was hoping she could at least make his eye do that cute little twitch it did when he was angry.

"What were you thinking Asami?" She sighed, with Mako here she should have expected a lecture coming her way.

"I was thinking that it had been a very long day at the office, and I was looking forward to crawling into my nice warm bed as soon as possible."

"You were drunk."

"Like I said, _very_ long day." He looked down at the table and pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a low exasperated groan. _Still got it_ she thought with a smirk. "Listen Mako, I'm sorry. You know I'll gladly pay the fine" she thought for a moment "And I'll make a donation to the RCPD retirement fund tomorrow, but I have to get to work in the morning and it's already late. Could you just take me home so I can sleep off my buzz?" She could already feel the hangover building behind her eyes, and her short fuse growing even shorter.

Mako picked his head up and shot her a glare hot enough to make her squirm in her seat "Your _buzz_? Asami you're off your ass!" she rolled her eyes.

"You're being dramatic."

"Dramatic? You bent your Sato-mobile around a pole! You, Asami Sato, who I have personally seen take hairpin turns at sixty miles per hour, got into an accident on a straightaway."

"A cab cut me off!"

"Really? Because according to Officer Mei's report you ran a red-light!" That made her pause. Was there a red light? She certainly didn't remember one, but she had closed her eyes, lost in blissful memories of happier days. She probably shouldn't tell Mako that though. Mentally, she tried to retrace her route up to the scene of the accident, but she was still a little drunk and after a moment she gave up entirely. "How much have you had to drink tonight?" Mako muttered softly.

She turned his head, she could never lie to him when he was being all quiet, and _sincere_. It didn't suit him in her opinion. "It doesn't matter. I drove drunk, I got caught. What's the fine?"

"Y-you got caught. _You got caught?_ You were trashed Asami! You could have gotten hurt, you could have killed someone, _you_ could have been Killed!"

"But I didn't"

"That's not the point, what if you hadn't been so lucky? What if there had been someone in the car with you?"

"There wasn't Mako, and I'm fine. You're honestly making this into such a big deal when-"

" _I can't go bury any more friends!"_ He roared, rising from his chair slightly. Asami flinched visibly, and Mako quickly realized what he said. Drawing a deep breath he sat back down and continued in a much quieter tone "I can't Asami. I can't lose anyone else…"

She seethed with anger. As if _he_ was the only one who had lost someone. Did he think she'd forgotten what it was like? What it felt like during the funeral? How the hot July air sat stagnant and dead on her skin, as if they were burying all the life left in the world along with the tiny emaciated body in the coffin. Did he think she forgot the horribly slow creaking of the ropes as they lowered Korra into the ground?

She closed her eyes and clenched her hands in front of her, gripping her palms together so tightly that the cut opened on her thumb and fresh blood wept out of the wound, leaking down white knuckles. She couldn't relive that again. She wouldn't break, not here, not in front of Mako. "So then don't." She whispered.

"What?" He asked leaning back in his chair.

"Don't. Stop worrying about me. Stop calling to check up on me, stop coming up with half-assed excuses to drop by my office, and stop having cops sit on the corner outside my house every night. I'm not going to run away like some teenager." He opened his mouth as if to contradict her but she continued before he could say a word "And don't lie about it. I know what it's like to have someone watching me, or did you already forget what my father was like when we dated?" He quickly closed his mouth.

"Quit pretending like you have to protect me. Just leave me alone and you won't have to bury any more friends, because we're not friends anymore Mako. In case you hadn't noticed, the city is as safe as it's been in years. You don't have to pretend that you're still part of Team Avatar, we buried that the day we put Korra in the ground." The words tasted bitter in her mouth, and she knew that they hit home. Mako's expression hadn't changed, but his eyes showed the truth behind his flinty façade. Looking into them Asami could see all the hurt, loneliness and betrayal that she'd gotten so used to seeing in her own reflection these days. Regret bubbled up at the back of her throat like bile, but she bit it back and scowled at the floor.

The silence dragged on for a few moments and Asami's emotions were running riot. She wanted to apologize, wanted to tell him that she didn't mean it. A larger part of her though realized she _did_ mean what she said, and that all she really wanted tonight was to be left alone, and to crawl into bed and try and grab two or three hours of sleep.

When he did speak, it was so soft and low Asami almost believed that she was imagining it. "Sometimes, I miss the Fire Ferrets."

"Yeah Mako, we all miss being a part of Team Avatar." Her anger hadn't burned itself out yet and she practically hissed the words through gritted teeth.

"No, not Team Avatar" he said with a shake of the head "I mean yeah, I miss Korra, I miss her every day, but I meant I miss the _Fire Ferrets_. Back, before The Red Lotus, before Unalaq, even before we really started fighting the Equalists. I miss practice, I miss the games, running to Narooks after each match, spending lazy days by your pool just the four of us. I miss back when pro-bending was the most important thing on the planet. Hell," he coughed out with a shaky laugh "I even miss that disgusting old locker room."

Asami managed to look up at him behind a curtain of hair "I remember when we used to sneak into that locker room in the middle of the night to make out." Mako guffawed out-loud at that, a real honest laugh from Mako was so rare that it even made Asami chuckle a little.

"Yeah, we did, until Bolin caught us."

She picked up his story instantly "I almost died I was so embarrassed, he couldn't look me in the eyes for a week!" He was now grinning at her fully. She hadn't seen that look since…

He seemed to pick up on her failing mood and a little sadness returned to his eyes though the smile remained

"You know what I miss most?" She indulged him and shook her head "I miss actually having friends. Yeah, I always had Bolin but he was my little brother, I had to take care of him you know, had to protect him from the world. But with you guys I could just be… honest, be myself."

His confession seemed to be draining him as he started to sag in his seat, for the first time since he sat down he lost a little bit of his perfect posture and Asami could almost see the street-rat she'd hit with her scooter what felt like a million years ago.

"After Korra, we all split apart. Bolin ran off for the Earth Kingdom to help clean up that mess. I think he couldn't be in the city anymore, not without her around. And you, well," he swept a hand at her current predicament before putting it up defensively "not that I'm one to talk, I threw myself into case after case, barely leaving enough time to shower and eat in between. But I think we've spent long enough alone. I miss my brother, I miss my friend, I miss you Asami."

She'd returned her gaze to the floor, drawing in one ragged breath after another, trying desperately not to let the emotion leak out of her eyes. She may have been pretending not to notice it, but in these past six months she'd been lonely, so cripplingly lonely. There'd been so many nights where she'd sat with a glass of wine in one hand, the telephone clutched in the other, just wishing she could call Mako. They'd once been so close, but after the breakups and the fights… at the wake and funeral they'd hardly said two words to one another when they should have been each other's shoulder to cry on. She'd always put the phone down, she didn't know if Mako would even want to talk to her, and had been too afraid to learn the answer.

Eventually she murmured a quiet "I miss you too."

"That's why I won't give up." The Iron in his voice forced her to look up. His jaw was set and he was staring at her with the kind of fire in his eyes that would have made the eighteen year old Asami weak at the knees, but now just kept her in respectful silence. "I won't stop calling and I won't stop coming by your office. I won't stop being your friend Asami because you're important to me. You're… All I have left."

As he trailed off towards the end of his sentence Asami realized that without Korra, and his brother fighting a war thousands of miles away, she was likely the last friendly face the firebender had left in the United Republic. Her thoughts drifted briefly towards her father sitting in a cell probably not too far away from this room, before she swiftly shut them down. No. She'd cut him out of her life and had _no_ intentions of reconciling. Mako was the only person she had left too.

She reached as far across the table as the handcuffs would let her and splayed her fingers out flat on the cool metal. "I-I'm sorry for what I said. I didn't mean it, I've just been so… _angry_ and so… so tired. Mako I'm so tired. I'm trying to fight, trying to hold on but I'm slipping. I feel like I have nothing to hold on to, for a while I thought I could bury myself in my work like you did, but at the end of the day I always have to go home. And my home is so… I'm lonely. I haven't been this lonely since I was a little girl and it's like I have this whistling hole inside me where she used to be and it just keeps growing. I feel _nothing_ Mako, I just wake up and go through my day in a daze, like I'm not even there anymore. I-I'm falling apart..." She hung her head as she finished, hiding behind her raven locks.

Mako's warm fingers wrapped around hers and she leaned into the feeling of genuine human contact, one she hadn't felt in too long.

"You really loved her didn't you?" he asked in a way that implied he already knew the answer.

She let out a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob "Was I really that obvious?"

"Please. I think the whole Earth Kingdom could see the way you two made polar bear-puppy eyes at each other when you got back from the desert" he replied with a smile in his voice.

Asami smiled into her lap. They sat together for a few minutes in a happy silence broken only by her sniffling softly, both surrounded by warm memories of friends gone by. Then she felt the comforting pressure of his hands release and looked up to meet his soft gaze.

"Have lunch with me tomorrow." The timid question earned him a sideways glare from the engineer. "Not like that!" He backpedaled, "Just as friends. Like I said, I miss you and I want to spend time with my friend. I want to know what you've been doing, I want to help."

"I'd like that" she replied, relaxing the tension in her shoulders. It's not that she didn't trust him, it's just that in the past Mako hadn't been the most "aware" individual when it came to emotional matters.

"Great," he said as he pulled a key from his pocket and reached across the table to undo her handcuffs. "Let's get you cleaned up, then I can have an officer drive you home."

Asami nodded as she stood from the table, rubbing her wrists. At least now she had something to look forward to instead of just another day of endless paperwork and a hangover.

 **A/N: And we have chapter two! If you came here looking for more overt Korrasami... sorry? I just really wanted to play with Asami's character a little I love her so much. There's probably only going to be one more chapter in this story. Like before, any reviews would be greatly appreciated!**


End file.
